Achieving Environmental Ends:

Policy and its Implementation

John MurlisUCL Department of Geography

IUAPPA/BAEWAP Seminar

São Paulo 22 October 2002

The story in summary• Our environmental problems arise from the way we satisfy consumer needs and

wants

• This involves life cycles of processes, products and services

• Present process- based systems for environmental management have served us well but how far will they take us towards our environmental aims?

• In future gains are likely to be slow and costly

• Eventually we will need new approaches, spread over life cycles, involving producers and consumers

• There are immediate opportunities to build towards these new approaches in addressing current problems

Policy and its Implementation

• What we aim to achieve

• How we aim to achieve it

• Working with different interests

• In complex societies

Trends in Environmental Policy and Implementation

From To

Outcome FocusTechnology/output regulation Environmental quality based

Environmental IntegrationSingle issues Environment taken as a whole

Sustainable DevelopmentEnvironmental objectives Environment in context

Being Clear about ends• How do environmental aims sit in a context of

sustainable development?

• Can we describe the environment to which we aspire?

• Can we measure the gap between where we are and where we wish to be?

• Can we understand what has to happen to close the gap?

Approaches to environmental Policy and its Implementation

• Precaution

• Technology

• Effects

• Market Instruments

• Co- management

Precautionary Approach

Strengths:

Administrative Simplicity

Weaknesses:

Indirect solution

Opportunities:

Use where effects serious but link with pressures not quantified

Threats:

Discredited if investment produces no quantifiable improvement

Technology Based Approaches

Strengths:

Equal misery

Weaknesses:

Inherently costly

Opportunities:

Provides visibility and clarity for policy makers

Threats:

Resistance to costs imposed without reference to benefits

Effects Based Approaches

Strengths:

Value for investment clearly quantified

Weaknesses:

Relies on good scientific understanding

Opportunities:

Builds public confidence in secure environmental policy

Threats:

Over-selling if scientific uncertainties concealed

Market Instruments

Strengths:

Economic efficiency

Weaknesses:

Lacks transparency

Opportunities:

Flexibility to embrace technological progress

Threats:

Discredited if targets fail to be met

Co-Regulation

Strengths:

Takes advantage of environmental leadership and innovation

Weaknesses:

Depends on trust between parties

Opportunities:

Flexibility to embrace technological progress

Threats:

Discredited if principal actors fail to deliver

Taking Stock: How far have we come?

• Local Air Quality: greatly improved but some targets elusive and transport growth threatens gains

• Waste: where we have targets, they seem unattainable

• Regional Environmental Protection: may be half way toward critical loads for acidity in Europe by 2010

• Climate Change: fragile agreement in Kyoto, but targets do not match the scale of the problem

• Control of persistent micropollutants barely begun

What are the Drawbacks of our current Approaches?

• Progress is slow: science and policy analysis are contested

• Solutions are incomplete: intermediate targets the norm

• Policy is reactive: damage is done before action can be taken

• Progress is fragile: other government and public priorities

• Inefficient: Little opportunity for innovation or environmental leadership

Life Cycles: Where to intervene?

• Marketing and Design

• Collecting Materials

• Manufacture

• Distribution and Sales

• Use

• Reuse and recycle

• Disposal of residuals

New Policy Approaches

• Move down the chain from process to product to service

• Spread the responsibility to producers and consumers

• Take advantage of market leadership and innovation

Example: Product Policies

• Aim : “minimising burden of consumption over whole life cycles”

• Standards guide, but do not constrain

• Results come from market leadership and innovation

Product-Focused Policies

Implemented through:

• environmental design and marketing

• eco-labelling

• taxes and charges

• product regulation

• producer responsibility

Product Policies

• Address main environmental threat• Treat whole product life cycle• Responsibility for change is shared amongst actors• Innovation released• Market can reward leaders• Opportunities for social learning• Connect to other dimensions of sustainable

development

The Environment as a business issue

• Return on Investment

• Legislative timetables and business cycles

• Certainty

• Level playing field

• Environmental Markets and Consumer Choice

Partnerships in compliance

• Understanding capacity: what is Possible?

• Understanding costs

• Linking to business or economic cycles

• Focussing on ends

• Agreements, compacts and covenants

What we need to know

• How much can a products policy deliver towards targets?

• What are the transaction costs?

• What regulatory controls will still be needed?

Conclusions

• Policy focus has moved from means to ends• Regulatory regimes have yet to follow• The next steps will be hard and a challenge to

rule-driven regulation• Cooperation is needed to reveal costs and options• Role of regulator may be challenged by emerging

environmental strategy in businesses• Partnership in achieving ends may prove most

effective common strategy